A Darkness Most Becoming
by Anddarkness
Summary: The Lord Marshal is dead, but even with his armada grounded and the necromongers disbanded, his destructive plans are still in motion. A stonesinger will led a team of ex nercos into a planet core, but only Riddick and get them back out again.


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CHAPTER ONE  
REQUISITION

There wasn't much you couldn't buy on Chahhil. Men, women, children, aliens, drugs -- if it was an illegal export, there was a market for it --and a dealer. You tried not to look when you heard people crying and screaming and you prayed you weren't next. She'd been next too many times to give a shit about that now.

The called her Ben. She didn't know who has started that, but someone thought it was cute and it had stuck. She was starting to loose track of how many owners she'd had. Sure, they looked different, treated her different, but they all merged into one in her mind. Nothing ever changed, it was all singing, all dancing shit, all the time.

In the stinking heat and dust of Chahhil in summer the city streets were unbearably busy and loud. The whole stinking planet was a desert, one big ball of dust orbiting around a blue sun without even one lousy moon to illuminate the sweaty nights. There was money on Chahhil if you had a mining rig and knew where to look, the endless burning desert had earned more than one man enough to by a nice little moon to call his own. Or a tropical island on Centauri Prime perhaps.

That was why she was there. Not as a minor, although the sold plenty of slaves into death for that. They wasted away down in the darkness until they rotted. Not as a concubine either, no one had the balls to touch her. Even the meanest, most vicious of them were too superstitious to try anything like that. She was a non gender to them, a thing. Rocksinger. They were terrified of her, but greed overwhelmed fear, because she could find their next hit for them. Diamonds, oil, metals, anything you could mine for, she could find it.

The first time she had been brought it had been for two million credits. The second time for thirty million credits. The fourth time for three hundred million credits, but she wasn't interested in their games anymore. Dying was better than helping them. It didn't matter how the beat her, threatened her or deprived her. She was fed up with the live of a slave and fed up with living. So this was how it ended. Three years of beatings, and twelve buyers later, she was shackled and blindfolded while four men haggled her price to an even twelve thousand credits.

"All singing, all dancing shit, all right," she muttered under her breath then Finn jerked her chain. Finn wasn't so bad. He smoked, he spat and he had bad gas, but he was too lazy to beat anyone. However he'd been too lazy to feed her too and that had been worse. She guessed he'd brought her thinking he'd make a profit somewhere up the line, but no one wanted a rocksinger who wouldn't sing.

"Eez done, Ben, eez done. You go with eez men now," he told her in his thick accent, "Dis eez good bye."

She heard the jangle as Finn passed the chain over to her new captors and someone ripped the blindfold away roughly. She blinked, blinded by the sudden light and heard the gasp and murmur that usually accompanied first sight of her visage.

"Jesus, those eyes..."

"She eez rocksinger. What eez you thinking you see? Eh? Eh?" Finn said, making shoeing motions, "Eez sold! Take it! Take it away!"

The man holding her chain was young. Young for a miner, maybe twenty eight. His black hair was twisted up onto his head in a bun, but one unruly strand hung down around his left ear. His eyes were black too, and his clothes. He must have been stinking hot in the sun, but he had not even broken a sweat.

"Do you speak?" he asked, eyeing her intently.

She nodded. He seemed content with her answer and made a sharp gesture for his companions to follow. There was something too disciplined about them. They were military personal of some kind. The other three men were even less remarkable than their leader. They were older, wore the same black clothes and paid her no attention whatsoever, flanking her like prison guards... or an honour guard.

She wasn't the only one noticing their uncharacteristic behaviour. Authority types weren't welcome on Chahhil. It was crawling with bounty hunters, but military and interplanetary police were frowned upon. Feared even, because while the planetary alliance turned a blind eye to what happened on Chahhil, there wasn't a merchant on the planet who couldn't have a bounty slapped on him for dealing in contraband.

It wasn't until she saw their ship that she started to struggle. That familiar ship. That necros ship. Her captor jerked the chain taut, but she lunged away from him anyway, trying to break free, not caring if she broke her wrists or even if they killed her. She was not going on THAT ship.

"Hold her. Hold her!"

Hands grabbed her, hoisting her off the ground, but still she struggled, kicking and thrashing. Biting even, when one of them was stupid enough to get too close to the business end of things.

They were ruthlessly efficient and even the man she had bitten made no sound. She'd drawn blood on him, and still he hadn't cried out. Then again, it wasn't all that surprising. These men were ex necros. And she was very, very familiar with the workings of necros...


End file.
